After a week full of storms and rain, the clear skies were a welcomed change – just in time for race day. Yesterday’s qualifying results put Kirby head-to-head with Mika Brageot who qualified in third position.

“We’ve been struggling with our engine ever since Abu Dhabi,” shares Kirby. “We’ve been trying to troubleshoot whatever we can, other than changing the engine, but it is just not putting out the power it once did. Mika has been flying faster than us, so a clean run is going to be extremely important to beat him.”

With a clean run of 1:00.223, Kirby progressed to the Round of 8 after Brageot incurred a one-second penalty for an over-G in one of the vertical turn maneuvers. This led him to his second matchup against world championship contender Martin Sonka in the Round of 8. His time of 1:00.063 was not enough to move on to the final round of race day, but Kirby did add 13 world championship points with a 6th place finish.

“Although we didn’t make it to the final four, this is the best race we’ve had this season,”states Paulo. “Kirby flew his line exactly to the plan we had briefed, and most importantly, he flew clean. Considering our engine performance issues, I’m happy with these results.”

The team will have one last opportunity to bring home a first-place trophy in Chiba, Japan, September 7/8 when the series returns for the final race of the year, and sport.